Interesting description of a problem that i think plagues so many inner cities and from my standpoint really one of the contributing factors of this is one of the Top Priorities of this committee is securing our borders. This is what i think our 25th . 25th hearing on some aspect of border security. Now, the title of the hearing was border and security the rise of ms13 and other Transnational Criminal Organizations. Reading through the testimony, it looks like were going to be focusing an awful lot on ms13 which is obviously in the news today. And ill let the witnesses tell the stories, but it is kind of interesting the history of ms13. Originally formed out of immigrants coming from el salvador, the war there in california, Southern California area. And then based on problems, those members being deported to Central America, the organizations grew and tliefd in Central America, now were seeing them come back sometimes in the form of unaccompanied children. I did send a letter yesterday as a result of information we received from a whiffle blower i sent to mr. Chot lloyd, the director of the house of refugee and reset willment. And yesterday we were informed by a whiffle blower of a customs and Border Protection document from july of 2014 describe ang incident. This is at the height of the surge of unaccompanied children arriving at our border and the documents appear to indicate the cpb april preened htd the selfidentified ms13 gang members at the border. The incident report dated july 5th, 2014, basically stated that officers assigned to the npc, thats the that gal lous Placement Center, identified multiple admitted ms13 gang members. Another document goes on ton quote all identified gang members at the Placement Center have been placed in the appropriate Placement Center and are no longer being held at the mpc, the that gal lous Placement Center. 16 identified juvenile gang members were transferred to Placement Centers around the country including shan nan doe valley in virginia, staff secure in washington, nova staff secure in virginia, the swk maca staff secure in texas, childrens village new york, and Army Training center in oklahoma. Now the office of refugee reset will meant, orr within the department of health and Human Services was responsible at that point for the care and custody of the children apprehended. Why do you point that out . Weve got a broken system. It was in 2002 in the operation of Homeland Security we split split out the responsibility where now cpb apprehends, process, then turns unaccompanied children over to hhs. And weve gotten very good at apprehend, processing and dispersing. Which for my standpoint has just fueled this rise in unaccompanied children coming to the boarder. Certainly during the last administration, just so i understand what were talking abouting when we say unaccompanied children, because i know immediately people think of little children, 7, 8, 9, ten years old. Here are the facts out of 188,000 unaccompanied children apprehend from twifl through 2016, that includes from Central America as well as mexico because its only broken out with that so its not just Central America, 68 of those unaccompanied children were 15, 16, or 17. In other words, prime gang age. By the way, 68 are also men. Less than 18 were under the age of 12 or under. So the fact of the matter is, so many of the unaccompanied children are literally young men, prime gang age and now we have documentation from whiffle blower that cpb apprehended them, new they were ms13 gang members, and they process and they disperse them into our communities. So, again, i think the purpose of this committee is to highlight these problems within our government agencies, within our government laws and procedures, to make the public aware so we can actually keep this homeland safe. So, again, i appreciate the witnesses coming here to testify. Well describe the danger, the problems with ms13, the barbarity, and thats what this this committees all about is holding these hearings to raise that public awareness, lay out a reality so we can actually enact Public Policy to combat it and keep this homeland safe. With that ill turn it over to senator mccass skill. Thank you. And i want to thank the chairman forholding this hearing. Theres nothing more important than getting these criminals behind bars, nothing. And if if we have, in fact, in any way allowed criminals to come into our country, then there is complete agreement, i believe, on every member of this committee that we need to do everything we can to apprehend them and catch them. I want to begin by recognizing the three witnesses here today and such respect for what do you every day. I know firsthand from my time as a prosecutor that people that wear the uniform in Law Enforcement in this country go to work every day not thinking about themselves but thinking about what they can do to protect, what they can do to make sure that families are safe in their communities and they take a great deal of risk in doing so. So i know youre job is sometimes thankless and its easy for folks to criticize you, but i just want you to know from from the depth of my person how much i respect what you do every day. Gang violence is certainly a huge problem in this country and its tearing apart families and take the lives of way too many. They prey on the week, on the vulnerable, they provide a sense of family that many times young people have neverhood had and they do irrelevant represent per able damage not just to the lives of their victims but also to the communities where they live. Today were here to discuss one gang in particular, ms13, a gang that was started in st. Louis in the 80s and excuse me, in los angeles in the 80s and has since kp panhandled to Central America. You know, i want to recall the feeling of hopelessness i used to have when i was the prosecutor in kansas city and we had a huge gang problem. When we would be confronted with horrific violence that was gang inflicted, and we couldnt get anybody to talk. I remember sitting and crying with victims and explaining that if no one talks, no one goes to prison. And thats why these gangs are so insidious. Not only do they do violence, but they also by the way they commit violence they discourage anyone from ever speaking up in ways that can hold them accountable. And thats why im troubled that weve seen a recent trend in some places even fewer people are willing to come forward. In communities that are full of people who have come to this country looking for hope from another country. And i certainly want to protect our borders, i certainly want to secure our borders, but we also have to be cognizant that what we say and do has an impact on peoples willingness to come forward. And then you exacerbate that by the fact theyre going to come forward against gangs then we give you an impossible job to try to hold these gang members to the standards that we demand. And that is putting them in prison for as long as we can possibly put them in there and in some instances seeking the death penalty. So i because of my sensitivity about how hard it is to get these guys, i just want us to be very careful about documents that are released because sometimes information about individuals is very sensitive. Even documents that the committee got a hold of last night. These documents did not come from cpb, they came from a whistleblower when we want to encourage whistleblowers, but we also have to be very cautious if theres Sensitive Information in any of these documents that they have been fully vetted and that Law Enforcement in those communities who may be working investigations as we speak about some of these individuals, that theres nothing that in any way is released that could ever hafharm any of those investigations. Putting these people in prison is way more important than this hearing. So i have concerns that these documents were release sod quickly and that we didnt have a chance to even view the documents on our side of the aisle until they had already been released as now part of the Public Discourse on this issue. So i understand the concern and i share the concern, but i think weve got to be careful and cautious because at the end of the day weve got to make sure were supporting you. And that is the most important thing that we have to do. So i look forward to your testimony and i look forward to answering asking questions about the challenges you face in getting these gang members that are wreaking havoc in so many communities across the country. Thank you, senator mccaskill. It is the tradition of this committee to swear in witness sods if youd all rise and raise your right hand. Do you swear the testimony you will give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you god . I do. I do. I do. Please be seated. Our first witness is mr. Timothy sini. Sini. Sini, okay, sorry about that. Police commissioner sini serves a a Police Commissioner for Suffolk County in the state of new york. Prior to his appointment of commissioner he served as the isnt county skpek executive for the Public Safety in the same jurisdiction. Commissioner sini. Thank you very much and i want to thank the chairman, all the members of the committee to provide testimony today regarding ms13 in Suffolk County new york in ways in which we can Work Togethering to effectively rad indicate this gang from our communities. Just briefly, Suffolk County is new yorks fourth largest county situated some 20 miles east of new york city covering 911 square miles and 1,000 miles of coastline on the eastern end of long island. Suffolk is comprised mostly of suburban communities of approximately 1. 5 Million People. The Suffolk CountyPolice Department is one of the 15 largest Police Departments in the country with approximately 2,500 sworn officers and approximately 1,000 civilian employees. Contrary to stop you. Is your microphone working or can we turn up the. Its the green button is on. Sure. Contrary to vent sentiments in the national media, thanks to the hardworking men and women of the Suffolk CountyPolice Department, suffolk remains one of the safest countiesch its size in the United States. Presently crime is the lowest its been since weve been collecting reliable crime stat zikz in 1970 five. Dis despite these historic reductions in crime, weve experienced an increase in Gang Violence expected to ms13. Specifically since january 1, 2016, of the 45 homicides that occurred in Suffolk County, 17 of those are believed to be linked to ms13 which is approximately 38 of all homicides during that time period and since 2013, 27 murders in suffolk have been attributed to ms13. Suffolk county has approximately 400 identified ms13 gang members organized in cells called alcoholics. Many of these clicks has connections in neighboring counties. Active ms13 gang members are predom nait nantly male and range from the age of 16 to 29 and the median age of ms13 arrest tease is 18. In Suffolk County ms13 engages in a variety of criminal activity such as assaults, murder, drug dealing, extortion, robberies and burglaries. Intelligence indicates that many ms13 gang members hold wagepaying jobs and are not focused primarily on incomegenerating crimes such as drug dealing differentiating them from the typical street gang. Rather ms13 often engages in violence for the sake of violence. To increase the know the right of the gang and to cause communities to fear the gang and its members. In fact, in 2016, the most frequent reported crime committed by ms13 was assault. The signature weapon used by m sgs13 is the machete. As noted, ms13 members also commit murder often targeting members that they perceive as disrespecting the gang. For example in 2016, the gang members brutally beat two young girls to death in a suburban kulda sack. They were 15 and 16 years old. They were high school students. Shortly before her murder, kayla had a school yard argument with an ms13 gang member. In collaboration with the fbi long island safe street task force they arrested their murderers and theyre currently being prosecuted by the United States district Attorneys Office. In response to the heinous acts of ms13, the Suffolk CountyPolice Department launched a gang retaliation act which has resulted in 213 ms13 arrests of more than 150 individual ms13 gang members. Our strategy is as follows. We collect a tremendous amount of intelligence on the gang with the specific objective of identifying ms13 gang members and hang outs and assign Police Officers to specific gang members to aggressively and relentlessly target the members and the locations and the locations where they frequent. This targeted enforcement suppresses crime, results in the collection of intelligence, and generates valuable evidence for federal prosecutions down the road. As we engage in this targeted enforcement, we are working hand in hand with our federal Law Enforcement partners to strategically select ms13 gang members for federal prosecution under the rico statute which is a very effective tool to dismantle gangs such as ms13. We recognize, however, that targeted enforcement as well as enhanced patrols not alope lead to the irrelevant rad occasion of ms13 from our communities at as we weed out gang members from our neighborhoods, we need to invest in schoolbased and communitybased programs to reduce gang recutement and enlistment. Ms13 preys on our most vulnerable, young people and if we do not provide the structure for these young people ms13 will. To this end we use intervention strategies such as custom notifications, call ins and we also work closely with our schools to identify atrisk children to be intervene and effective ways to prevent them from joining gangz or to assist them in getting out of a gang. One specific segment of our population, particularly vulnerable to gang recruitment is our unaccompanied children known as uacs. From 2014 through march, 2017, 4,624 uacs have been placed in suffolk countrity alone making it one of the largest recipients of uacs in the country. While the vast majority of these children are good kids seek a better life in the United States, theyre vulnerable because they are young, unaccompanied, adjusting to a new country, culture and language and seek a sense of belonging and some of them do not have the structure and support system in place to help them. We have seen a small percentage of uacs fall victim to gang recruitment. In some while the vast majority of uscs lead lawa biding lives, the vulnerable of these children creates a sense of recruitment for these children. The to highlight ways in which the federal government can further assist local governments on this critical Public Safety issue, i respectfully suggest the following. More federal prosecutors to prosecute rico cases against ms13 gang members. For example, we work with the Long Island Criminal Division of the United StatesAttorneys Office for the Eastern District of new york and they have only 11 line assists and four supervisors despite the fact that districts with comparable or smaller populations have significantly more ausas. If provided with sufficient ausas, the Suffolk CountyPolice Department could launch a pilot pro granl in collaboration with the fbi and direct Attorneys Office could be screened for possible pros cuing. This would increase the number of federal prosecutions of ms13 gang members taking dangerous individuals off our streets and likely generate significant gelts due to the incentives in the federal system for defendants to cooperate with Law Enforcement. Second, improve intelligence sharing among Law Enforcement agencies throughout the country. Perhaps by creating a singular database with with information relating to ms13 gang members. This system could include automatic notifications to agency whens information is added regard ang individual whos of interest to that agency. Such a database would encourage multijurisdictional operations and allow local pris Police Departments to be more proactive in targeting ms13 gang members in our communities. Additional funding to social hotspot policing in areas of ms13 activity. Fourth additional funding for programs tied directly to the number of uacs placed in our communities as they are some of the most vulnerable to recruitment. And lastly improvements to the uac Program Including but not limited to increased screening and compliance monitoring of sponsors, notification of placement Ton School Districts and local govern